Where it came from
Grayscale launched the Bitcoin Investment Trust in 2013, a vehicle that let accredited investors hold a share in a trust holding bitcoin rather than hold bitcoin themselves. That product became GBTC, went to public quotation in 2015, and became an SEC-reporting vehicle in 2021. The registration statement filed in 2026 dates the firm to 2013 and puts assets under management at approximately $35 billion as of 30 September 2025.
The corporate structure was rebuilt for a share sale. Grayscale Investments, Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on 2 May 2025, having previously been called GSO Intermediate Holdings I Corporation, and sits under Digital Currency Group, Inc. as controlling shareholder. Its Form S-1 was filed in November 2025 and amended in January 2026. Peter Mintzberg has been chief executive since August 2024.
What the court actually held
On 29 August 2023 the DC Circuit decided Grayscale Investments, LLC v. SEC, No. 22-1142. The court granted Grayscale's petition and vacated the Commission's order refusing to let NYSE Arca list the converted product. The ground was narrow and administrative: the Commission had approved two bitcoin futures products in 2022 on a surveillance-sharing rationale, and it never explained why the same reasoning did not carry over to a spot product tracking the same market. Unexplained different treatment of like products is arbitrary and capricious.
What the court did not do matters as much. It did not order the SEC to approve anything, it did not reach Grayscale's other arguments, and it decided nothing about bitcoin itself. An agency that loses on its explanation may write a better one. This site covers the ruling in Grayscale v SEC: like cases must be treated alike.
GBTC now trades on NYSE Arca, having begun there on 11 January 2024. Its 2025 annual report reports net assets of $14.50 billion at 31 December 2025. Coinbase Custody Trust Company is the custodian and Anchorage Digital Bank is an alternative custodian. A share in the trust is a claim on the trust, not a coin anyone can move.